News, 5/26/2017

Finnish designer empowers sustainable fashion

It was the summer of 1986, and Timo Rissanen was 11 years old. It was a confusing time to be growing up in a suburb in Finland. You could no longer just step into a grocery store and fill your basket without thinking twice. A catastrophic accident had just occurred at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, in what is now Ukraine, and a cloud from the explosion had travelled north, reaching Finland.

Families had to take precautions when it came to putting food on the table – many people remember the temporary ban on picking berries or mushrooms. For the first time, Rissanen realised that the environment wasn’t just an abstract concept, but rather it was the water that he consumed and the air that filled his lungs.